Liberals give bad advice on world crises

ANOTHER VIEW

October 19, 2002|By CHARLES D. SNELLING, Special to The Morning Call -- Freelance

In the 1600s, English poet John Milton disclaimed, "Whoever knew Truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?" It is in this spirit that I beg to differ with those at The Morning Call who write and choose what is printed on its opinion pages.

There's nothing wrong with criticizing government. Bad advice, however, is another matter. Over the past two months, the opinion pages have been home to an unparalleled attack on our president. Columnist David Broder said that the president was pursuing a "madman" approach to international relations. Scarcely known academicians, political scientists and the like have written op-ed columns that criticized from every conceivable angle the president's policies toward Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. The anti-Bush cartoons have been downright vicious. After Saddam claimed the president wasn't trying to protect the world from weapons of mass destruction, but instead was trying to steal Iraq's oil, The Call promptly published a cartoon showing Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney stealing Iraq's oil.

Plainly, The Call's editors oppose bringing Saddam to justice in the manner the president proposes and tell us so on a regular basis. In the beginning, they claimed the president would be behaving unconstitutionally to take action against Saddam. Then, when Congress authorized, by a 3-to-1 margin, the president to take such action if necessary, The Morning Call criticized Congress for not having asked the right questions.

My grievances go beyond the opinion pages. "Doonesbury" regularly derides the president on the comics pages and the strip recently accused Bush of being willing to sacrifice American servicemen to win an election.

Of course, poll after poll show that a majority of the American people supports the president and believes he is pursuing the right course. And the vote of Congress on Oct. 10 shows it supports the president and believes he is following the right course. How can we explain this dichotomy between editors and public?

In many cases, academics and editors are in a class by themselves, and in many cases they neither relate to nor understand the American people and the values which the American people are willing to defend with their blood and their treasure. Many years ago, one broadcaster said she didn't understand how Nixon won the election against McGovern because she "didn't know a single person who voted for Nixon." Exactly true.

Nothing much has changed. According to the Providence Journal, a study of Brown University's faculty found that for every 54 members of the faculty on the left (members of the Democratic, Green or Working parties), there were only three on the right (Republican or Libertarian parties). So it goes with academia and media folk. So much for a balance of viewpoints. So, over the past month, the conservative reader of The Call's opinion pages had only to grit his or her teeth and have faith, a well-founded faith, that the American public and Congress would not be misled.

Some have blamed the president for Sept. 11. He didn't connect the dots, they say. Now the president has connected the dots on Saddam Hussein, and the same critics are saying wait, you don't have a smoking gun. Well, the smoking gun could be the deaths of tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of Americans. Don't do anything now, the left says, you might provoke Saddam. What we all know is that the longer we wait, the more terrible resources Saddam will have to use against us.

Old-timers will remember the media and academic support of Neville Chamberlain when he gave other people's countries to Hitler for "peace in our time." Meanwhile, Winston Churchill was calling it right. "Stop Hitler now or have a World War II and a Holocaust." Churchill was right, but it didn't keep the media from denouncing him as a warmonger, just as they denounce Bush as a warmonger.

The United States and its allies will save the world from terrorism and from Saddam. The citizens of the United States are smart enough to ignore the editorialists and academics on the left.

Charles D. Snelling is an Allentown entrepreneur and Republican Party activist. His e-mail address is cdsnelling@nni.com